Sex in the 1990s is complicated, confused, and permeated with every emotion and motive imaginable. Screenplay writer Don Roos has explored some of these in Boys on the Side, Love Field, and Single White Female. In this zany comedy which he also directs, the grail is love rooted in commitment and constancy, acceptance and affirmation.
The jaded narrator of the drama is Dedee (Christina Ricci), a totally self-absorbed 16 year old who runs away from home in Louisiana. She moves in with Bill (Martin Donovan), her half-brother, who is an Indiana high school teacher. He's still mourning the death of his lover of AIDS. With predatory glee, Dedee seduces Bill's new live-in companion Matt (Ivan Sergei). They flee to Los Angeles to start a new life, taking a stash of money and the ashes of Bill's deceased lover. Following in pursuit are Bill; Lucia (Lisa Kudrow in a hilarious performance), a sexually-repressed fellow teacher; Randy (William Scott Lee), one of Dedee's abandoned boyfriends; and an Indiana sheriff (Lyle Lovett).
The Opposite of Sex is a hoot from start to finish. Don Roos has a real knack for fleshing out the foibles of contemporary sexual mores.